10 Reasons to spend your next semester in India

Are you looking into studying abroad next semester and trying to decide where to go? Are you interested in social justice, learning about world religions, good food, wildlife, and adventures? Consider studying abroad with India Studies Program and immersing yourself in the Indian culture!

Here are 10 reasons you should study with ISP:

1. Travel. While ISP is based in the south in Tamil Nadu, one of the highlights of the program is our extensive travel component. During the semester, you will go on three 3-5 day trips to neighboring cities and states to visit people and programs, as well as to enjoy what those areas have to offer including food and famous sites. At the end of the semester you will enjoy an 18 day trip across north India hitting various cities such as Calcutta, Varanasi, Delhi, and Agra! Think Mother Theresa, Agra Fort, Taj Mahal, Ganges river...

Batch 5 visits the Taj Mahal

2. NGOs and job opportunities- You can come to India and enjoy all the tourist attractions on your own. But when you study with ISP, you will be introduced to people and organizations that are doing great work here in India. Interested in education, business, sex trafficking, outdoor adventure, or enterpreneurship? We'll show you what opportunities are open to you here and what is already being done.

Shiamala Baby's women empowerment organization

3. Festivals. India is known for its fun and bright festivals. No matter what semester you come, you will have the chance to join in the celebrations. Fall semester students will experience Diwali- the Festival of Lights with lots of fireworks and sweets. Spring semester students will cover each other in bright colored powder when they participate in Holi-the Festival of Colors.

Celebrating Holi

4. Friendships. One of the best aspects of a study abroad experience can be the friends you make, whether those are Indian friends or other American students on your trip. These are friendships that could last a lifetime as you learn from each other.

Camel rides on the beach

5. Adventures. From white water rafting on the Ganges river, to possible elephant rides, to swimming in the Indian ocean in a salwar kameez, to boating on the Backwaters of Kerala, to camping in the wilderness, to train rides- you will find adventure in India!

Repelling down the side of a waterfall

6. Food. There are so many great restaurants and road-side stands to choose from with a variety of delectable cuisines. If you take the Catering class, you will have the chance to learn how to cook Indian dishes!

The Catering class enjoys the fruits of their labor

7. Clothes. All right ladies, this one is for you. India is a colorful nation with gorgeous saris at every turn. Fabrics are very affordable, tailors are numerous, and there are rows upon rows of saris to choose from. If you take the Design class, you will even get a chance to design your very own outfit!

The girls enjoy dressing up in beautiful sarees and salwars

8.Chai. Once you've tasted this sweet milky drink, there is no turning back. One of the great parts of this culture is that there is always time to take a chai break during the day!

Traditional way chai is served here

9. Language opportunities. Tamil is the official language of Tamil Nadu and is offered as one of our classes. However, you will most definitely meet people from Kerala and be introduced to the Malayalam language and North Indian people who speak Hindi.

Watching a traditional Kerala Kathakali dance

10. Discovering the Divine image. While in India you will come in close contact with people from other faith backgrounds than yourself. What can we learn from them? Learn about world religions and how they are practiced in India.

Convinced? Come join us next semester!! 

To apply, go to: https://www.bestsemester.com/locations-and-programs/india

Happy Holi from ISP

Happy Holi!
Okay, so we know that Holi was actually a week ago (March 17th) but due to our travel schedule we couldn't celebrate on the actual date, but better late than never right?!

For those of you who don't know what Holi is: it is the Festival of Colors. The idea is to throw colored water and powder at each other! This festival is celebrated all across India and no one is spared-old, women, and children alike all participate! The Color Run is actually a take off of Holi.

After inviting several of our Indian friends over to join us and changing into white shirts- the fun began!

But enough talk: let's see the results of our celebration!

Apartment 207- brightly decorated

Apartment 408: totally covered in color

Posing with some of our Indian friends

Yep: we had fun!

To see more pictures from our fun night, check out our Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/IndiaStudiesProgram

A Birthday, A Feast, and A Visit from the king

This weekend several of our students were off on another home stay. The rest still had a fun full weekend in Coimbatore with a big Onam celebration at our apartment complex. Yes, you may have already read our blog about Onam- but it is a 10 day festival and our Malayalee neighbors wanted to be home in Kerala for the actual holiday and then celebrate back in Tamil Nadu afterward.

The morning was a flurry of preparations to get our sari’s wrapped properly and get all dressed up. We went outside and found a beautiful huge rangoli (flower design) that had apparently taken 4+ hours to create!

Beautiful rangoli

Soon we heard drumming and a horn being blown so we wandered over to the entrance and spotted… the king! We joined in the parade of people bringing him into the complex. Since everyone else was getting a snap next to the king, we decided to follow suit. Now I must admit that I was a bit disappointed to see that his eyebrows, mustache, and sideburns were filled in with a marker and that he was not a real king! But he did a good job of looking stately and important! 

The King

 There were several traditional dances performed by little elementary girls that were so impressive performing multiple dances with several costume changes. There were also several awards given out, including ‘Best Dressed Couple’ which our director Kirk Ji and his wife ended up winning!

Director and his wife winning the award

One of the little dancers

   After the performances were over, we were treated to a feast of traditional food from Kerala served on a banana leaf! There were so many different side dishes and it was very interesting to taste all these unique flavors. 

Just the start of all the dishes they served us

 This weekend was also one of our student’s birthday. It was definitely a birthday she will never forget-eating a feast on a banana leaf and meeting the king! When all the students had returned from home stay, we had a surprise party with cake. All in all, another good weekend in India!

Birthday surprise!

This coming Friday we are heading out on our first weekend trip to the city of Madurai to visit the famous Meenakshi temple and tour the Mahatma Gandhi museum!

Happy Onam!

Happy Onam from ISP!!!

             

      Onam is the harvest festival in the neighboring state of Kerala. Today, Onam was celebrated at school through cultural dances and a ‘rangoli’ or ‘flower design’ competition. The students were off at their internship sites for part of the day, but came back early in order to watch the festivities. Rangoli is an intricate design in a circle that is created entirely with different varieties of FLOWERS!! The Malayalee (or Kerala) students at BACAS competed in teams to create the best rangoli design. Taylor, who is an art major, thoroughly enjoyed watching the designs come to life.

In the afternoon, the Malayalee students put on a show with traditional (and non-traditional) dances and songs. The girls wore beautiful white saris which are traditional in Kerala and many of the guys danced hip-hop. There was even a girl who sang a Taylor Swift song in a 'southern drawl'!!

               

This was truly a cultural introduction for the students to life in India in the way that programs are run but they definitely enjoyed it! Each state has pride in their unique culture and so it was good or us to get to experience that energy!

To see more photos from the celebration please visit our Facebook page: India Studies Program (ISP)

Still Traveling. Still Processing. (Two of Three).

Holi, the Festival of Colors

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“Creation and destruction are one, to the eyes who can see beauty. And the greatest praise to India is this: not only are her people beautiful; not only are her daily life and culture beautiful; but, in the midst of the utilitarian, humanitarian, dogmatic world of the present day, she keeps on proclaiming the outstanding value of Beauty for the sake of Beauty, through her very conception of Godhead, of religion and of life.” 

- Savitri Devi

In Pictures: Roof-top Party!

Holi, a religious festival celebrated all over India, is known as the Festival of colors. It celebrates the beginning of the new spring season and commemorates many events from Hindu mythology. It is most commonly celebrated in Northern India but our ISPers were able to celebrate it in the South with a little help from some friends. Ladies and gentlemen, we welcome you to our Holi Celebration:

"Before" 

We began our party at sunset, on the roof of our apartments. T-shirt color of choice: white. (For obvious reasons.)

Getting the "color" ready. The dye in this bucket was used to fill up the squirt guns. 

Ashley and Abraham prepping the colors. There were two buckets filled with color and a bunch of pouches filled with colored powder. (Everyone got their own pouch of powder to throw).
The rules were simple:

1. Avoid throwing color at the eyes and mouth.
2. Have Fun! (Heavily emphasized by Abraham).
3. Observe rules 1 & 2. 

(slow moving) Action shot!

Ingredients for a Holi celebration: colors and friends! (Roof is optional). That's all you really need.

Downstairs apartment. They love each other.  Clearly. 

"After"

Without a doubt, one of the best nights of this semester. These pictures (and our t-shirts) will definitely be some of our favorite things to show off to our friends and family back home. 

Thai Pirandhal Vazhi Pirakkum: Happy Pongal!

Last week, a former BACAS student and her family invited ISP students to celebrate the Tamil harvest festival of Pongal with them. We traveled in the college bus out to the neighboring town of Pollachi where we observed puja, or prayers, and shared a traditional Pongal meal.

Pongal is celebrated with the most zeal in the villages, as in farming villages people live more closely to the land and are more in tune with nature, harvest and crops. The festival is something around 1,000 years old (some say older!), and we were fortunate to observe it with some very generous hosts!

During Pongal, Hindu adherents show their gratitude to the sun god Surya, to the land for the harvest, and to cattle for their sustenance and aid in farming life (Some especially crazy/ brave Tamilians also tame/ attempt to tame bulls during the festival, too! See Jallikattu for more information on bull taming and its history.) 

Pongal, or sweet rice with jaggery and milk, is cooked in clay pots over an open fire during the puja. When the pot boils over, it is supposed to signify material abundance and good luck for the household.

Our host family had a portion of their field fenced off for the celebration, pictured here. Sweets, bananas and other food offerings and ghee candles sit on banana leaves in front of a portrait of Krishna, one of the Hindu deities. 

Our group enjoyed learning about Tamil festivals and culture during our Pongal celebration, and enjoyed spending an evening with a very generous host family. Thanks for reading, and Happy (late!) Pongal!

Student Post: Melissa Braunschweig on Diwali!

{Adam, Erin, Kali, Brooklyn, Renee, Melissa, Becky and Natasha

react as a firework booms in the street behind them.}

{Melissa, Adam, Becky and Erin model proper ear plugging techniques as fireworks thunder through the sky in a 360 degree circle around them.}

We recently celebrated Diwali, the Festival of Lights. For Hindus, this is one of the most important festivals of the year. It is equivalent to our Christmas, just to give you a better understanding of the intensity of celebration going on over here. 

{Traditional clay diyya lamps filled with oil}

It involves lighting small clay lamps filled with oil to signify the triumph of good over evil back when the demon Naraka was vanished by Lord Krishna and his wife Satyabhama. Everyone celebrates by wearing new clothes, decorating their homes, sharing snacks with family/friends, and setting off ENDLESS amounts of fireworks! We loved it, though they really put the 4^th of July to shame. 

{Watching 'fountains' shower sparks down in the middle of the street.}

People started lighting off fireworks a week before the official day of celebration! And they started getting a lot more intense at about 5:00 the morning of the actual day. It sounds like a warzone over here! Our fantastic neighbors brought us sweets all week and are let us help with their decorations.

Staff Post: Jonathan Pinckney on the Festival of Kolu

While we're quickly approaching the festival of Diwali, beginning next week, ISP Staffer Jonathan Pinckney wanted to share his reflections on the festival of Kolu (or "Kooloo") from several weeks ago.

{Photo from our recent visit to the Gujarati celebration for the same holiday, also called Navaratri.}

It’s fascinating to see how integrally Hinduism fits into every aspect of community life in India.  Even Christians will describe themselves as “Hindus by culture” and talk about how Hinduism is “not a religion, but a way of life.” Last week a group of ISP students went to the home of one of the BACAS professors to observe her family’s celebration of the Hindu festival of Kooloo (Also known as Navaratri around India).  Celebrated over the course of nine nights, Kooloo is a festival dedicated to the three most important Hindu goddesses, Durga, Laxmi, and Saraswati, with three nights of the festival dedicated to each goddess.  In Tamil Nadu Hindu families traditionally celebrate Kooloo by putting up a five to seven-tiered structure on which they place idols.  Traditionally the idols are of Hindu gods and goddesses, but more recently Kooloo structures have been expanded to include plants and animals and even idol sets which include a complete cricket team!  These structures are arranged in the family’s living room and decorated with lights like a Christmas tree.

On Saturday night, the family we visited had brought in a Brahmin (Hindu priest) to offer prayers in Sanskrit to the idols in an elaborate ceremony that involved incense, flowers, bananas, and sweets.  The family also joined in at points, putting their hands close to the Brahmin’s sacred fire and then bringing their hands across their faces to gain blessings from the sacred fire.  When the prayers were over we celebrated with the family by eating sweets.  The daughters each sang a song for us, and the family asked us to sing a song as well.  Searching for a song that all of us knew we had to settle on the doxology, a funny contrast with “Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost” echoing next to five tiers of probably over a hundred Hindu idols.

Kooloo is also a time for the community to come together – all across the city cultural celebrations and community meetings are held around Hindu temples.  Members of the community put on programs showcasing their talents, usually songs or traditional dances.  We went with our host family to the local temple and watched the program for a while before heading home. All in all it was a wonderful opportunity to be welcomed into a family's home and feel like a part of their society even across the religious divide